Hi everyone, I am new to this forum. I do shamatha practice and was wondering, when you notice the breath. Do you notice the inhalation and exhalation without locating it at a particular spot? Or do you feel the sensations at the nostrils and upper lip? I use the latter, but when the breath gets too subtle the sensations disappear entirely, then it feels forced to find the sensation. This is at the cost of relaxation. What is the correct method and what have you found from your experiences?

I just returned from a Goenka retreat, and his explanation is that paying attention to the sensations at the nostrils and upper lip is the best because it helps to focus the mind. It does do that - it primes you for Vipassana practice, but I certainly never found it relaxing. I think the question is not what method is "correct", but what works in each circumstance relative to what you are trying to acccomplish. If you are simply trying to relax (while building some concentration), than I would suggest paying attention to the breath in the abdomen, or even forgetting the breath altogether and paying attention to the sense of space, the sense of rest, an external object (sight or sound), a mantra, or the sense of attention itself. One can even drop all intention to pay attention and simply abide. 

When you are watching the sensation on the lip, try to keep attention there all the way through the breath.  There is a point after breathing out and before breathing in when there is no air movement over the spot you're paying attention to.  In this moment, be sure your attention is still steady on the spot.  If I am doing this right it still feels like I am breathing out even though there is no breath - the area of sensation turns into a kind of "blob" or a thing that has physical substance.

It isn't the breath you're paying attention to so much as the point itself.  It's a mental object more than a sensation.  When the breath becomes very fine, the object itself is what the focus has moved to.

If you're having trouble with this, focusing on the breath in a more general sense is a good way to bridge the gap between a moving mind and a still mind.  Sometime I also will move through different body sensations, like "breathing into" the feet, then the legs, then the hands, etc, to slow down the flow of distraction.  Once the mind is more still it will then be easier to create a singular mental object to lock onto.

"..when there is no air movement over the spot you're paying attention to.  In this moment, be sure your attention is still steady on the spot..."

Why isn't there anything about this in the suttas? There is nothing about what to do between the breaths. This might point to that it all comes down to knowing what the breath is doing rather than focusing on a spot.

[1] Breathing in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long.' [2] Or breathing in short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he discerns, 'I am breathing out short.' 

Where is there anything about a spot being more important than the breath itself? Is it the spot that is a body among bodies?

Just my current theories. The third step is still a complete mystery to me since the schools differ sooo much.

These kinds of in-depth questions aren't answered directly in the suttas.  Truth is, you could probably write a whole book about a method and there would still be questions.  Practice seems to resolve these things better than study once you understand the basic ideas.

I have myself followed IanAnd's explanation on those two steps:
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1286373

Breath is something I keep in mind, but I don't really "focus" on it.

The first two steps are about establishing mindfulness to the breath without lapse.

Once you can do that then step 3 I've understood as keeping breath still in mind but bringing in to awareness the entire body.(reading on the four frames of reference on anapanasati sutta gives credibility to this interpration. The first frame of reference being the body.) So you're aware of the body, but breath is still in the background and you have to keep in contact with it continuously.

Step 4 can be interpreted in many ways. Calming the breath certainly deepends the samatha, but at the same time while you rise through the jhanas sensations off the body subside. So I take this to not mean only breath, but also all other bodily sensations (fabrications is the word used in the sutta). It certainly helps to start with the breath though.

This should get you to steps 5 and 6 experiencing piti and sukkha.. which are factors for entering into the first jhana.

This is interesting. But people do get the jhana factors of piti and sukha without changing to awareness of the whole body along with the breath? If that's true, what is the point of this step? Is it there because one needs to be aware of the entire body in order to attain any insight? That is Thanissaro Bhikkhu's explanation at least.

You don't think sabba kaya should be translated more litteraly as "all the bodies" then rather than "the whole body"? Because I think that translation makes sense since the Buddha later in the anapanasati sutta says that " the breath is a body among the bodies". The problem with that translation though, would be that it's not very clear what the other bodies apart from the breath would be included in "sabba kaya". I've heard suggestions that all the bodies would mean the physical body+the breath body+the mental body. Some suggest that to follow step three we have to be aware of the entire physical, breath and mental body while Buddhadasa say we only have to understand the relationship between them (this seems a bit far fetched to me though). 

howdy,
focusing in on one point (like the gatekeeper just observing the people entering and leaving through the gates of the city) as goenka et al suggest is a very good concentration and vipassana practice.  what one is notincing here
is the sensation.  you can cal it breath if you want to but 'breath' is a concept. the sensation is the sensation. 

that it gets very subtle is good in that it sharpens your skills.  there are lots of things to notice when you have this tight focus.  for example, getting past the concept of breath and noticing simple the sensation will reveal things like the "image" we have of this part of our body which is not the sensation of the touch of the breath; it is a different thing. noticing that the 'coolness' is also different than the touch itself.

you can also associate the CONCEPT of the breath with the entire or widened field of sensations over your entire 'body'.  body is also just a concept. know that.  this collection of sensations that you associate with an image or images and concepts is not the sensations themselves but rather a set of concepts which you identify with and invest with a reality that is easily refuted.  it is simply a different meditation object than the touch of the air on the upper lip.  its much more complex and the associated images and identified concepts are more varied so tougher to see through in some respects.

for my money, the tight focus of the air on the nostril etc. is a great fundamental practice to separte the concepts from the sensations; the training wheel phase if you will.  the wider focus meditation on the collection of sensations which make up the entire 'body' is a little more complex and important as one gains more experience.  no harm in doing it anytime , of course, and i often still watch the breath at the nostrils when the mood strikes or the attention is a bit dulled.

The nostril practice you talk about sounds like a practice of the first two steps in the first tetrad of anapanasati, and maybe the fourth too. What about the third step? 

howdy..funny that you should mention that.  i was ruminating afterwards on just that point. i would ask 'what meditation could we do that has no relation to satipattana or anapanasati...and all of the tetrads, or all of the 'patanas'?

with the example of the breath at the nostril you can start your meditation on the level of the namarupa or the direct sensation and move up the aggregate model to the feeling tone, perception, reaction, knowlege.

from the perspective of the 7 factors you could evaluate each sensation and your reactions to it, the mindfulness, investigation, energy...  stay, hovering at one factor for a while and move on up to equanimity if you want.

investigating the mind states is not much different than all of that.  you are just categorizing the input and your reactions to it in a different way, reflecting more on things like desire, clinging, aversion, level of discernment and precision, things like that.  is that what you mean?

No I'm just really confused as to what sabba kaya patisamvedi means, there are so many different interpretations. Often meditation instructions look like "just focus on thr breath and get back if you get dustracted" but in the suttas they're far more complex. There is actually the Arittha sutta where one monk tells the Buddha about the way he practices anapanasati: he just gets his attention here and now and stays with the breath. Then the Buddha seems to go "well that's good but it's not enough" and then he teaches the 16 steps/four tetrad once again.

Since I haven't reached jhana yet I don't worry much about tetrads 2-4. In the first tetrad I kind of get how, if one is just focusing on a breath sensation, is doing steps 1, 2 and 4. But I don't get how one is doing the third. Some, like Ajahn Brahm insist that the third step means focusing on the breath from the beginning to the end (=the whole breath body) but don't you have to do that in order to fulfill steps 1-2? Then why is there such an instruction?
What do you think it means and in which way am I doing it if I'm just focusing on, say, the air at the nose?

I haven't read any suttas so I don't really know what everyones talking about. I am merely following instructions from books. Alan Wallace says to feel the sensations at nostrils/upper lip while Ajahn Brahm says to watch the entire cycle of the breath WITHOUT locating it anywhere in the body. I have tried both approaches, and the latter allows me to stabilize my attention very fast, while the former erodes my relaxation because I am trying so hard to feel the sensations.

You might want to look at the Dipa sutta on breath concentration.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn54/sn54.008.than.html

Four years ago I started out with the nostril thing but later switched over to a whole-body approach that I found and still find much more effective, more interesting, more productive of states, and much, much easier for beginners to do. It also closely matches what MCTB2 instructs for breath meditation.

In short, download for free Ajaan Lee's short meditation guide, Keeping the Breath in Mind. Skip over Method 1, which is longer and for cultivating the powers, and try Method 2. Experimentation is the best way to find what works best for you.

Find it here:

http://www.dhammatalks.org/ebook_index.html#thaiforest

That's kind of what I've been doing, but doesn't it require a fair amount of skill in spot concentration too? Because I've been doing the freestyle roadmapping thing a lot and I got a little weird states but no jhana and I was never able to get to the whole body awareness. I'm reevaluating my practice right now and do small spot concentration only since people tell me it's going to help in reaching whole body awareness. If you started with the nostril thing then maybe you were already skilled in that enough to get full body awareness through the Ajahn Lee method.

I had trouble with the nostril thing, I think, because it is so boring that it is easy for distractions to creep in. Ajaan Lee's method is more like a body-sweeping method. Because you don't have do anything to the breath (just leave it the way it is, even if that is manipulated to death) and because you have something to do, as with noting, you don't get bored. Right about the time that the mind settles down and end, then you imagine breathing through all pores, like a sponge. This is the whole-body awareness, which actually brings me to Jana 4.

May as well try it for a while.

Best wishes.

"it is so boring"
I actually think that might be something good since I have this theory that many of the altered states is reached through under-stimulation of the mind. 

Wait, you mention leaving the breath as it is? I thought one was supposed to manipulate the breath until it feels comfortable in the beginning of tha Ajahn Lee method. I've always skipped this step though, since my breathing gets comfortable by it self if I pay attanetion to it (maybe this counts as manipulation, I don't know).